Third week …

This week’s blog is about the math beyond the magic. Ada Lovelace said that anything can be explained in an equation, so I read. I found this to be true in science and if data science is a science, it should be true as well. Trying to explain what is happening with the data requires a lot of math that I have forgotten and much of it resurfaced while looking into SVM or support vector machine. Let’s take a look at my math adventure this week.

Monday, I continued to work with the cancer data and trying to predict whether the data input could predict cancer. I first downloaded the data set and with Derek Howard’s assistance I was able to load the data into the ML program. While still raw data, it was loaded into the model and it was trained to determine whether the data indicated a cancer diagnosis. I had a breakthrough on the use of ML and what it could do for the medical field. The math was not as difficult as I thought. While looking into SVM, I discovered that the goal of SVM is to maximize the distance between the decision boundary to the closet point thus forming a curve and not a forced line.

Changing gears, we had diversity training where we talked about microaggressions, by Christina Crawford. I am sure we can set up data and plot those points to mathematically explain microaggressions in the workplace, school, in society, in twitter. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120975716

While these numbers indicate the increase of microaggressions in tweets, I found it to be a tool as an awareness of microaggressions. I learned that as a teacher I could educate my students by making the students aware of a microaggression and correct their behavior.

Back to the math behind the magic. We had a presentation about Cardiovascular System and Photoplethysmography by Mel Boonya-Ananta. The thing I found interesting was looking how wearable technology to show the pulse of the subject at the wrist. The graphics of the radial artery show it expanding and contracting as the pulse was taken. Without math science would still be witchcraft.